Officials remember events of Sept. 11, 2001

Editor’s Note: These remembrances, which have been edited lightly for clarity, were originally published on Sept. 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

On Sept. 11, 2001, State Sen. Edna Brown, then a Toledo City Councilwoman, was going to celebrate her grandson’s 10th birthday.

Edna Brown

Brown, Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken (then Councilman) and Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak (then Councilwoman) were all up for re-election in a primary that day.

Former Gov. Bob Taft was driving to work with a state trooper while Gov. John Kasich had been on a corporate conference call since 4 a.m.

“I remember how blue the sky was, how bright the sun was,” said former Toledo Mayor Mike Bell, then the city’s fire chief.

And then terrorists flew a plane into the World Trade Center. It was no longer just a primary, just a beautiful day, just a birthday, just a Tuesday. It was 9/11.

Like so many others, Gerken turned on the TV.

“I thought I had the movie channel on and not the news,” he said.

“It was one of those things, you want to make sure where everyone was but you’re also fixated on watching,” said U.S. Rep Bob Latta, then an Ohio representative.

Gerken immediately called his son, who was in Washington, D.C., during the attacks, while current Lucas County Commissioner Carol Contrada’s daughter called from Vermont to inform her of the events.

“We watched the event unfold together on the phone, consoling each other,” said Contrada, an attorney.

Carol Contrada

Wozniak, along with a campaign worker for her opponent and a woman neither had met before, bonded while huddling around a TV. Wozniak and the worker were campaigning at a Washington Local school when “a woman across the street called, ‘Would you like to see what’s happening?’” The pair went into the woman’s home to watch the news coverage on her TV.

“There were no barriers, no differences. We basically bonded,” Wozniak said.

Safety officials

Meanwhile, then-Mayor Carty Finkbeiner called safety officials Bell, Lucas County Sheriff James Telb and Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre to his office to develop a plan. Telb remembered being told not to worry about overtime and extra personnel.

Finkbeiner said his two main concerns were keeping Muslims and foreign residents safe from retaliation as well as keeping city locations like the water treatment center, The University of Toledo and The Toledo Museum of Art secure.

“That led to decade-long intensive planning. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since,” Telb said.

In addition to getting grants for new equipment, Lucas County and surrounding counties have gained access to a radio system that allows all responders to be on one channel in case of an attack, Telb said, adding, “It’s still state of the art. People still want to match it.”

Mike Bell

Police and hospital officials also began talking to each other to develop plans in case of future attacks. Before 9/11, “Nobody ever talked to the hospital. No one in law enforcement did that,” Telb said.

Bell was subsequently appointed chairman of the Joint Regional Terrorism Task Force, which included about 30 officials from surrounding counties and parts of Michigan. Following the attacks, people frequently reported low-flying planes that were just checking on power lines, in addition to anthrax scares.

Bell sent 12 firefighters to New York City to help, while the Toledo City Police sent six officers and the Sheriff’s Office sent five officers.

“It actually shocked them and these were some pretty tough people,” Bell said of the firefighters he sent to Ground Zero.

Kasich told Toledo Free Press he went to Ground Zero on Sept. 20, 2001, as part of his show “Heroes” on FOX News Channel. He recalled the eerie quietness and observing searchers: “They had big, long sound detectors. They’d make their way across the site, listening for people who had been trapped.”

One man, a retired fire chief, had been at the site every day since the attack because he believed his two sons were caught in the rubble.

John Kasich

“He looked at me and said, ‘My boys are going to come out of there.’ And, of course, in terms of probability, they wouldn’t,” Kasich said. Kasich’s New York office with Lehman Brothers was destroyed in the attacks, although Kasich said he didn’t spend a lot of time there.

Kasich said the death of his parents, killed by a drunken driver in 1987, helped him relate to victims’ families.

“I myself have been in a situation where I’ve experienced that black hole of sudden death,” he said. “While I understand it may not be exactly the same, I can relate to them.”

In Columbus

Taft said he continued to work at the Riffe State Office Tower in Columbus that day.

“I wanted to get into the office, follow the events and do what needed to be done,” Taft told Toledo Free Press.

He didn’t recall any communication from Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001, but figured an attack on Ohio was unlikely.

“Most of the news was coming from the media,” Taft said. “I think they were still trying to figure it out in Washington.”

The next day, Taft did hear from the White House about 9/11.

He said he continued to hear about the events of that day for the rest of his term.

“No single event while I was governor was more powerful,” Taft said.

After learning of the attacks during an early meeting, then-Lucas County Commissioner Sandy Isenberg sent nonessential county workers home. Isenberg and Finkbeiner held a press conference with officials on the steps of One Government Center.

“If you’ve got a picture of the newsreel, I was up there crying, trying to keep a calm demeanor,” Isenberg said.

Finkbeiner did not send city officials home and continued to hold meetings and conferences throughout the week, he said.

The primary elections also stayed open that day, in what Gerken called “the best way to keep democratic values alive.”

The attacks, including a third plane flown into the Pentagon and a fourth that passengers took over and crashed into a Pennsylvania field, changed not only government policy, but also politicians’ personal views.

“It’s a game-changer when something like that happens. It resets your thinking,” said Rep. Barbara Sears, then a Sylvania city councilwoman.

Former Lucas County Recorder Jeanine Perry, then a representative, recalled a state trooper checking her and about four fellow representatives’ bags following the attacks. The trooper leaned over State Sen. Shirley Smith’s (then representative) large bag and she yelled, “BOO!” causing the trooper to jump back. Instead of getting angry, “he laughed, and we laughed and that was the first time in weeks that we laughed. It just changed the atmosphere and environment,” Perry said.

Barbara Sears

‘This was real’

Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins, then a Toledo City Councilman, was a visiting professor at the University of Toledo with a class and office hours scheduled that day.

“My first impression about Sept. 11, 2001, as I got on my office computer, was that it was a hoax, similar to H.G. Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds,’” he wrote in a 2011 column for Toledo Free Press. “I then realized this was real, as New York and Washington, D.C., were victimized by the insidious series of events.

“When I heard of the commercial flight westbound, just over Pennsylvania, my first thought was fear. Was it going to strike Davis-Besse and expose 20 percent of the world’s freshwater to nuclear radiation? The somber realization that thousands were dead and not knowing how many attacks could still take place replaced the momentary feeling of fear.

“By mid-day, all individuals who were not considered critical to the university’s ability to function were directed to leave the campus immediately — I was exiting the health and human services building and going to my car, when I observed a young female student wearing a hijab, crying and shaking in the doorway.

“I drove off, but as I approached Dorr Street, I thought about my failure to come to her aid. I turned back to look for her, but she was not to be found. The guilt still remains and I hope someday I will have the opportunity to apologize for my failure to respond in a manner consistent with my core values.

Never the same

The aftermath of the attacks “probably will be with us until the end of light on this earth,” Finkbeiner said.

To commemorate the attacks, he said he will likely visit those steps he spent so much time on at One Government Center “to remember how we all came together.”

Mayor D. Michael Collins

“The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 instantly altered life in the United States,” Collins wrote. “To say that our freedoms have been changed would be an understatement. One example would be one’s experience at an airport pre-Sept. 11 compared to today. Would today’s security measures have been tolerated then, from a legal or social standpoint? The answer is academically and resoundingly no!

“Our world has shrunk and with this tragic event, the life we enjoyed pre-9/11 will never return.”

After the polls were closed that day and the campaign was over, Brown went to see her grandson.

“I did go by to see my grandson and he was puzzled and wanted to know why it happened on his birthday,” she said.

While many things changed that day, some things remain the same as life continues on.

Brown said of her Sept. 11 plans in 2011, “My grandson, of course, is older but I will celebrate his birthday with him.”

Grit, glamour and glory

There are places on Earth that absorb human energy and store it like a psychic battery. Events of great emotion create “hotspots” that retain the tenor of overwhelming sentiment.

I stop short of believing in haunted houses, but I have experienced a preternatural cold three times in my life — while standing in a train boxcar once used to transport Holocaust victims to Auschwitz; standing at the Ground Zero site in New York City; and when touching a Titanic artifact that was raised from the lost ship’s Atlantic Ocean resting place.

It is a blessing that this psychic energy is most potent and life-affirming when it is created by positive emotions, by love and creativity and that most elusive and hard-to-define entity, fun.

I first encountered that energy in Memphis, Tenn., inside the modest setting of Sun Studio. Standing in the same space where Sam Phillips recorded music by Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Charlie Rich, Howlin’ Wolf, Carl Perkins, Rufus Thomas and so many others, I felt the vibrations of revolution, the confluence and tension of race, talent and the fulcrum of ambition.

But even that powerful feeling was dwarfed by a recent visit to Studio A in Detroit’s Motown headquarters, Hitsville, USA Motown Museum, less than an hour north of Downtown Toledo, has opened a new exhibit, “Girl Groups: The Grit, The Glamour, The Glory,” which honors such first ladies of Motown as Diana Ross & The Supremes, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes and The Andantes who, like their background fellows The Funk Brothers, sang on 20,000 recordings.

The exhibit, which includes fascinating information on the role women played in Motown, includes a lineup of dresses worn by the label’s superstars and archived materials from concerts and promotions. The story of Motown founder Barry Gordy Jr. is captured in video, photos and a walk through the actual rooms where he began a musical and cultural revolution.

As well known as the Motown story is, it is easy to take its impact and legacy for granted.

Gordy started the company with an $800 family loan in 1959 in his home of 2648 W. Grand Blvd. (which is now co-named Berry Gordy Jr. Boulevard). Gordy converted his garage into a studio, his kitchen into a control room and his small dining area into “shipping and receiving.” From such modest beginnings, Gordy, described by critic Dave Marsh as “the most musically talented executive in the history of the record business,” built an empire.

Studio A

The Motown statistics are staggering. Between 1961 and 1971, 163 Motown singles charted; 28 of those hit No. 1. The Supremes alone racked up 12 No. 1 records. The list of Motown artists reads like a roster of Hall of Fame rockers, and it should; in addition to Gordy, Rock Hall inductees include The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight and the Pips, sidemen Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson and writers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozer and Eddie Holland — and Mary Wells and The Marvellettes have been nominated.

The hit parade of Motown classics could choke a jukebox and fill a large portion of an iPod: “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”; “Reach Out I’ll Be There”; “Heat Wave”; “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”; “You Keep Me Hangin’; On”; “My Girl”; “My Guy”; “It Takes Two”; “I Can’t Help Myself”: “Shop Around”; “Dancing in the Street”; “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone”; “The Way You Do You the Things You Do”; “I Second That Emotion”; “What’s Going On”; “Where Did Our Love Go”; “Stop! In The Name Of Love”; “You Can’t Hurry Love”; “I Wish It Would Rain”; “ABC”; “It’s the Same Old Song”; “Standing In the Shadows of Love”; “For Once In My Life” and an overwhelming number of other landmark recordings.

Listening to Motown recordings today one can still hear the vitality and energy Gordy and his army of writers and musicians managed to capture. The Motown Museum illustrates the business and artistry of Gordy’s genius. Under glass, a single sequined glove and black fedora symbolize Michael Jackson’s presence. A gallery of album covers shows the progression from generic illustrations (because so many American record stores of the time would not display albums with black artists on them) to proud releases on Motown’s Black Forum label, which released spoken word recordings from Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes and black soldiers in Vietnam.

The tour includes a glimpse of the rooms where the Gordy family began its entrepreneurial efforts; the window where Gordy once sat mailing vinyl records now frames a perfect view of the street sign proclaiming “Berry Gordy Jr. Blvd.”

But as compelling as the museum and offices are, it is Studio A that embodies rock ’n’ roll. My media tour was led by Allen C. Rawls of the Motown Museum Board of Trustees. Rawls spoke of auditioning for Motown when he was 15, and how he and kids on passing school buses would stare out the windows to see which stars were in the neighborhood. Rawls carries himself with great dignity and gravity, but his love for the Motown legacy shine through his storytelling like sharp rays of sunshine.

The control booth outside Studio A, Rawls pointed out, has deep grooves worn into the floor, where producers and engineers pounded and stomped their feet while making music that shook the world.

Stepping into Studio A, knowing one’s feet are descending steps walked on by Marvin, Stevie, Smokey, Diana, Martha and scores of other monumental artists, is a transcendent experience. The battered headphones and microphones frame the small room; it is amazing that the thundering sounds on Four Tops and Vandellas records were made in such a small and modest space. Lines between black music and white music were obliterated in Studio A. Memories of love and loss, heartbreak and triumph, were given a soundtrack in Studio A. The piano in the studio is a stand-in; the one Earl Van Dyke played on Motown classics is in New York, being refurbished courtesy of the generosity of Motown fan Paul McCartney. But the drums played by Pistol Allen, Bongo Brown and Uriel Jones are there; so is the vibraphone played by Jack Ashford.

Sun Studio promises of mischief, sex and trouble. Studio A at Motown vibrates with peace, love and soul.

When deciding which records to release, Gordy would ask his players, “If you only had $1 in the world, and you had to choose between a sandwich and this record, which would you choose?”

Having been immersed in the grit, glamour and glory of Studio A at Motown, there isn’t a sandwich on the planet I would take over any one of a hundred Motown songs.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

9/11: Eyewitness: Accountant recalls escape from North Tower

NEW YORK CITY — Accountant Peter Bitwinski was at his desk on the 69th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when a plane slammed into the building about 20 floors above him.

“I didn’t see it because my window faced west and the plane came from north to south, so it came at my back and literally thrust me onto my desk. That’s the first thing I felt. I’m at my desk writing something and all of a sudden, I’m thrust into this whirlwind of not knowing what exactly is happening to me,” Bitwinski told Toledo Free Press. “The thing I remember most was just the feeling after the tower was hit. It was like the floor was rolling and the building rocking back and forth. The building used to sway on heavy windy days, but you immediately knew it was nothing like that.”

As the building continued to shake, Bitwinski, a supervisor in accounts payable for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, got up from his desk, his mind racing.

“You’re not thinking about what happened, you’re thinking about what to do. Should I run for the exit? Should I just grab onto something?” Bitwinski said. “I knew exactly where I was. I was 70 floors above the ground. So you’re saying to yourself, ‘This is where it ends.’”

Unanswered questions

Peter Bitwinski

“I’m saying to myself, ‘It’s a clear day. What’s happening? Why is the building moving back and forth? Why was it impacted? Was it a plane?’ You just don’t know what’s happening,” Bitwinski said.

After several minutes, the shaking stopped. Someone appeared and told everyone to evacuate. Someone else, who had been facing the windows, verified a plane had flown into the tower.

“So within five minutes, I knew what had actually occurred,” Bitwinski said. “It’s just it was odd because planes never came close to the building. There were days when the fog and the storms were so intense. Those were the days I used to think a plane could accidently hit the Trade Center, but they never did. I think when we reached the staircase that’s when it started to kick in that this was probably a terrorist attack.”

Carrying a paralyzed co-worker, Bitwinski and several others moved slowly down the stairs. As they descended, they passed firefighters going up.

“The firemen, they were heroes. I don’t think anyone had an idea that the building would come down the way it did,” Bitwinski said. “On some of the floors, they were leaning against the landing. They were carrying all this equipment and they were exhausted. They needed a break before they could move up even further.

“I remember asking one of the fireman going up, ‘Is the building stable?’ Looking back, that’s probably the stupidest question I could ask. But your mind just kind of goes.”

Continuing descent

When the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m., Bitwinski’s group was on the 21st floor of the North Tower, having moved off the staircase to allow firefighters with equipment to pass up the stairs. Minutes later, they continued their descent, exiting the North Tower at 10:15 a.m., an hour and a half after the impact and 13 minutes before the tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m.

That short window between life and death is part of why Bitwinski feels compelled to share his story as a volunteer docent at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center near Ground Zero.

“My life was spared,” Bitwinski said. “The one thing I always said is I am no different than the other 2,977 names. Many of them, whether they were rescue people or just workers in the tower, all they did was come to work, just like me, and by fate I was below the impact line. My timing — I made it out 15 minutes before — how do you explain that other than there is some kind of force that wants you to be alive? So if I can share it by talking to you and by answering your questions, I am willing to do it.”

Second attack

Bitwinski was working at the World Trade Center in 1993 when a bomb detonated below the North Tower.

Compared to the 1993 evacuation when smoke filled the stairwells clogged with fleeing people, the 2001 exit was calm and organized, Bitwinski said.

“It was fairly calm, I’ve got to say that,” Bitwinski said. “As bad an event as it was, we were trying to stay calm, trying to duplicate what we needed to do, which was to exit. There wasn’t a lot of panic. You saw some shocked looks on people’s faces because you know where you are and you know where you’ve got to get to.”

Upon exiting the building, Bitwinski was surprised by how few people he saw compared to 1993.

“It struck me: Why there is no one outside? Because in ’93 there were flashing lights, emergency vehicles, everything,” Bitwinski said. “I didn’t know the other tower was down. You could understand, no one wanted to be outside that building because, with the other tower already down, they figured the same thing might happen to this tower. But fortunately I wasn’t aware of all that until later.”

People jumping

In the minutes between Bitwinski exiting the building and its collapse, people were jumping from the tower.

“It’s so high up it looks like just debris or wood or metal coming down, but then when you look again, you realize its people jumping,” Bitwinski said. “That hurt, because you realize it’s could have been you. Suppose these terrorists knew what they were doing and hit lower? Then I could have been at the line or above. I don’t know. How do you explain it? How do you know why you’re alive and why you’re not? You just move on.”

Bitwinski’s 9/11 experience has inspired him to live in the moment.

“It teaches you to live for the day because you just don’t know,” Bitwinski said. “It taught me a lesson about trying to do things I never did before and to live my span of life in a way that I could feel I’m gaining something out of every day.”

Still working for the port authority, where he has worked since a few years out of college, Bitwinski has since been promoted to manager of accounts payable. His department signs off on bills for the rebuilding and construction at Ground Zero.

Bitwinski now beseeches people, especially young ones, to forgo violence and be good to others.

“Setting an example is infectious,” Bitwinski said. “The more good people you’ve got in the world, hopefully will counteract the bad people who try to do things like what they did to the Twin Towers. I’m no preacher, but you’re hearing from me to try and make your world a better place. Just try, that’s all you can do.”

9/11: Eyewitness: Firefighter survived North Tower collapse

NEW YORK CITY — Sifting through the debris at Ground Zero in the days following Sept. 11, 2001, Lt. Mickey Kross was amazed to discover a pristine playing card amongst the ash and twisted wreckage.

The veteran firefighter picked it up — a two of clubs — and stuck it in his pocket.

Later, he wrote on it a quote from Shakespeare’s “Richard III”: “I have set my life upon a cast/And I will stand the hazard of the die.”

“That’s my philosophy,” Kross, who donated the card to the 9/11 museum on the site, told Toledo Free Press.

Kross would know something about beating the odds.He was a first responder to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks and was inside the North Tower when it collapsed.

Hundreds died as the building fell, but a portion of a central stairway between the first and sixth floors sheltered 14 people — Kross, 11 other firefighters, a port authority police officer and a secretary who had worked on the 73rd floor — from the collapse.

Their story was later featured in the History Channel documentary, “The Miracle of Stairway B.”

Today, the 64-year-old Kross, who retired in 2006 after 28 years with the FDNY as well as four years with the New York City Police Department, spends most of his time talking about 9/11.

“Everything I do is related to 9/11 in some fashion,” Kross said. “I used to do other things that I have just lost interest in — photography, watching films, visiting museums. This has in a sense consumed my life. Not in a negative fashion; it’s just what happened. All I do is interviews.”

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Kross was working at a fire station on East 29th Street in Manhattan. He was on the phone with his longtime girlfriend when the call came to respond to the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which had just been hit by a plane.

Lt. Mickey Kross

The second plane hit the South Tower at 9:02 a.m., just as Kross and his unit arrived at the scene. Kross, facing north with his back to the towers, didn’t see the plane hit, but heard a huge explosion and recalls being showered with flaming debris.

“We didn’t know if the South Tower blew up or what the hell happened, whether a bomb blew up,” Kross said. “Crazy as it sounds, people watching it on television in San Francisco saw more and knew more than I did, and I was right there.”

The resulting scene — the South Tower struck, the North Tower burning — was surreal, Kross said.

“The sights were mind-boggling. I thought for a second a movie was being made. I didn’t know if it was actually happening,” Kross said. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in my career, but nothing to compare to this.”

Kross gathered his firefighters for a pep talk — as much to calm his own nerves as to help steady theirs — before they headed into the North Tower.

“I can’t remember exactly what I said. I normally don’t do that. The guys know what to do,” Kross said. “That’s not a normal thing to do, but we did a huddle like the football players do. It was very brief. Just something like ‘Everybody take care of yourself and watch out for the guys next to you.’ There was not a lot of time, but I knew we were going into a very, very bad situation.”

At 9:59 a.m., Kross was on the 23rd floor of the North Tower when he felt and heard a massive rumbling. He thought the building’s elevators had cut loose and were falling and worried he might be pulled into the nearby open shafts by the vacuum created.

The sound was the South Tower collapsing.

About this time, an order was issued to first responders in the North Tower to get out, so Kross turned around. He was on the third floor when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m.

The firefighters inside could hear the floors above them falling and hitting one another, faster and faster. Kross had forgotten to snap his helmet and it started to fly off. He yanked it down and pulled himself tight into a corner.

“I thought I was going to be dead in a few seconds and I remember feeling ‘I hope this is fast’,” Kross recalled for the History Channel documentary.

The 110-story tower fell in 10 seconds. Kross found himself trapped on a ledge away from the others in the stairway. In total darkness, the survivors began calling out to one another.

Hours later, a radio message got through. The group reported their position as Stairway B of the North Tower, only to overhear the responder pause and ask someone, “Where’s the North Tower?”

“That’s when we found out how bad the situation was,” Kross said. “We didn’t know the whole building had collapsed. Very often building collapses are partial collapses. They were trying to give a description of where we were and were telling them to go into the lobby. We didn’t know that stuff didn’t exist anymore.”

As rescue workers attempted to locate the group’s position, Kross spotted an unexpected but welcome sight — a ray of sunshine.

“It was all peppered with this dirt and debris running through it, but it was the most beautiful sight in the world,” Kross said in the documentary. “A 110-story building fell down on top of us and I’m on the third floor looking at sunlight.”

The opening had been there all along, revealed by a wind shift that allowed light to shine through the ash cloud. Kross and the others started crawling toward the opening, where they emerged to find a vast debris field where the towers used to be.

Dazed, Kross came across a fire chief manning an improvised command post. When Kross stated his name and unit, the chief just stared at him.

“He has this list of names and says, ‘We have you missing as presumed dead,’” Kross said. “I said, ‘No I’m here!’”

Kross didn’t get back to the fire station until about 9 p.m., where he was reunited with his girlfriend.

“I remember banging my coat against the brick to get dust out of my coat and then I walked home,” Kross said. “I don’t remember anything else.”

Kross has mixed feelings about the 10th anniversary of the day he cast his die and won, against all odds.

“Sometimes it feels like it’s been 10 years and sometimes it feels like it just happened,” Kross said. “Sometimes it feels like it never happened — like it was in a movie. But it was real.”

Pounds: Coffee at Ground Zero

My mother, Therese, has lived in the New York City area for most of her 83 years. She often described the World Trade Center to me as “your generation’s building,” and she was correct. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was working as The Blade’s general manager and was at work when the attacks started. My staff was in my office and many were crying. We watched the events unfold for about 30 minutes and then got to work on the afternoon edition. Not many times did The Blade ever do an extra edition but that day was unique in many ways.

I spoke with my brother Richard in New York City later in the morning (when I could finally get through with cellphone service). He was walking his son, Jason, to day care as he would on any normal morning. He lived in the Village (an area that was blocked off for two weeks after the disaster) and walked with Jason on his shoulders to the day care facility. He told me that the second plane to hit the towers flew right over his head. He said when he went to the day care office and saw on TV what was happening, he and his son went home to the rest of their family.

I remember thinking of my Uncle George and a cousin who had an investment office in the towers and wondering if they had made it out. I learned later that day that they had moved offices two months earlier, but I was worried for hours thinking they were in there.

I remember going home to Montclair, N.J., (12 miles west of New York City) for Thanksgiving that year. That was the last week before they plowed down the walls of the towers that remained, the ones described as “potato chips” in the photos.

My brother Don and I took a gamble, visiting the site at about 1 a.m. Don suggested we get two cups of coffee.

I told him I didn’t drink coffee and he said, “Not for you, it’s for them,” pointing at the police officers guarding Ground Zero that cold November night. We gave them the coffee and they let us walk in a bit further than most could and gave us a view of Ground Zero that most casual observers never saw. We went to the city during that weekend and toured Ground Zero. The smell of jet fuel and the ugly, nightmarish smell of burnt flesh is something I will never forget.

As we observe the 10th anniversary of the attacks, the sights and memories of my visit to Ground Zero are as vivid as if I experienced them yesterday. I do not have any grand summation or special wisdom from the event, just an empty ache for “my generation’s building and the countless lives that were forever changed that day.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

9/11: Eyewitness: Forgiving helps woman heal from 9/11 loss

On Sept. 9, 2001, Rob Gschaar sat at the dinner table with his wife of 22 years, Myrta. Two months into his job at Aon Corporation, Rob discussed the 1993 terrorist bombing of his new company’s building, the World Trade Center. Two days later, tragedy struck the buildings again.

The attacks that brought down the towers took nearly 3,000 lives. Among them was Rob, who was on the 97th floor of the South Tower.

Life before Sept. 11, 2001

Myrta, a native New Yorker, met her husband Rob in 1987 through a work function. Myrta, a broker, found herself at a company party with rival insurance-worker Rob.

“He was the bad guy and I was the good guy,” Myrta said. “He worked for the insurance company so I had to get him to say ‘yes’ to what I want him to insure. He either accepts it or rejects it and most of the time they reject everything. So, I wind up marrying him.”

Myrta and Rob had struggled in previous marriages and wanted a better experience. Rob offered that second chance with a unique proposal lacking a traditional engagement ring. Instead, he gave Myrta a $2 bill and kept another. As Rob had described to her, they were like Yin and Yang, truly two-of-a-kind. With it also being the second marriage for both, the $2 bill was an ideal symbol for their love.

“He just gave me strength to be the best that I can be and just taking your past and moving to the future, learning from it and not making the same mistakes,” Myrta said. “He helped me find my love again, for myself especially. He never did anything bad, he was perfect. He was just a good husband and a good person. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He made me a better person.”

The couple lived in Rockland County, N.Y., as Rob joined Myrta’s family including her four daughters. After he was out of work for four years, Rob took a job at Aon, an insurance company inside the South Tower, on July 1, 2001.

The attack

Sept. 11, 2001, began like a typical Tuesday. Rob, who started his day much earlier, leaving around 5:30 a.m., routinely made his wife a cup of coffee that he left by the nightstand. Following a kiss on the cheek and a “Love you baby, see you tonight,” Rob was off to work.

When Myrta arrived at work, a co-worker informed her that a plane had just hit the North Tower. She quickly called Rob, located in the opposite building, who answered the phone saying, “Yes, it’s true.”

“He had a trembling voice and I knew something was really, really bad,” Myrta said. “He said ‘They are jumping. They are just jumping from the windows.’ He was in the South Tower, the 97th floor. From his view he was seeing people jumping. People on TV were just seeing specks. He was not seeing specks, he was seeing faces. That’s horrifying.

“I am on the other side of the phone panicking. I told him to drop what he was doing and just come home. He said ‘I’m going to see what we are going to do, what’s going to happen and if we are going to evacuate and I’m just going to call you back later. I promise I’ll call you back.’

Myrta Gschaar with the missing person flier for her husband, Rob.

“He said ‘I love you’ and then hung up the phone and that was it.”

That was the final conversation Myrta would have with Rob. Fewer than 20 minutes after a plane struck the North Tower, a second airliner en route from Boston to Los Angeles hit the South Tower. Myrta, who was not watching the broadcast, was informed by her boss of the incident.

“When I was still in my office my boss came out and told me ‘You may just want to get your things,’” Myrta said. “I said ‘What’s going on?’ and he said ‘Another plane hit and I think it’s the South Tower.’”

A friend of Myrta’s picked her up from work and brought her to her house, where she remained in the bedroom to avoid the news while friends stayed up-to-date with the events in the living room. Others gathered as their loved ones were also missing. Of all those in attendance, by the day’s end, only Rob remained unaccounted for.

Rob’s last moments

Following the tragedy of 9/11, Myrta was overcome with anger. Rob’s official status was still “unknown” and she held out hope that her husband was still alive, possibly amongst the wreckage or suffering memory loss. Myrta put up fliers with her husband’s photograph hoping for any sign.

Within the next two weeks, Myrta was contacted by a married couple who arrived at her house. The man, whose name is unknown to Myrta, claimed to work with Rob and was in the South Tower with him.

“They are sitting there and brought flowers,” Myrta said. “She came to tell me that if it wasn’t for my husband, her husband would have died. My husband saved her husband’s life.”

A few weeks later in October, Myrta held a memorial service for Rob. During the service, a woman in her 20s approached Myrta and told her a similar tale.

“She walked over and said ‘I just wanted you to know that Rob saved my life,’” Myrta said. “She said ‘I froze, I couldn’t move and my feet felt like they were lead grounded in cement but he pushed me to the door, told me to keep running and don’t look back. That’s what I did and I’m here today to tell you that.’”

Myrta, who was still mourning the loss of her husband, did not keep in touch with either party. Now in 2011, Myrta wishes she would have found out more.

“Back then I didn’t want to know about these people because they lived and Rob didn’t, so I separated myself from them,” Myrta said. “Once they left I just felt very angry. I didn’t bother keeping in touch with them. I didn’t want to and I regret that.”

Finding forgiveness

Myrta continued to struggle with her anger during the next few years. After an unending routine of leaving the house only to go to work, she decided to seek medical help.

“I started to isolate myself,” Myrta said. “I was snapping over here and snapping over there and everybody was looking at me like they shouldn’t be around. I started to isolate myself from the human race. My anger kept getting worse and I realized I needed help and went to a psychologist.”

Myrta discovered that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress. Myrta began working to overcome the disorder. She began attending different churches each Sunday before finding the right fit, later being baptized as a born-again Christian in 2004.

Despite her newfound faith, Myrta struggled as she felt something was missing. That’s when she found a solution at an International House of Prayer.

“There was something still not right,” Myrta said. “I couldn’t be whole and I wanted to be whole and fill that void. One day we were at an International Prayer House and there were thousands of people in this house and everybody there was praying for the world. After several hours of praying I started voicing my forgiveness toward the people who murdered my husband. Then my life changed.”

Myrta’s forgiveness of the terrorists who took her husband’s life turned her own life around. She began to feel complete and no longer angry.

“After I did that I felt a joy and a peace in me, it was an experience like I had never felt before,” Myrta said. “It’s better to live in the light than to live in the darkness. Forgiveness is better than hatred. If we live in hatred, we will still be talking about terrorism and that’s why we have terrorism today. If we live in love, we won’t have terrorism. We won’t have to fight or have bickering.

A lost item

In 2005, Myrta received a call informing her of items belonging to her husband that had been found in the remains of the towers. Until then, she had no official proof of Rob’s death, only the assumption he was gone and not somewhere suffering from amnesia.

Myrta gathered inside a room with others, picking up loved ones’ recovered items, when she received a shock.

Among the items recovered were Rob’s wedding ring and his wallet, containing mundane items like a security pass and some cash. Tucked away inside the wallet was a lone $2 bill, the same one he had saved more than 26 years earlier when he proposed to her.

“When they pulled that out I could not believe it,” Myrta said.

With the bills reunited, Myrta received the closure she had waited so long for. She donated both $2 bills and Rob’s items found in the wreckage to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. She moved to Ohio in 2005 to be closer to her family, residing in Maumee.

Myrta is visiting New York for the first time since she moved away on this Sept. 11 for the 10-year anniversary memorial service.